Airliner World analyses the trials, tribulations and triumphs of turboprop titan ATR
France's Directorate General for Civil Aviation used this ATR 42-300, F-GFJH (c/n 049), to calibrate instrument landing systems from 1991 to 2016
AIRTEAMIMAGES.COM/MATTHIEU DOUHAIRE
If you were in the market for a turboprop in the late 1980s or early 1990s, you’d have been spoiled for choice. While the previous two decades had seen a wave of consolidation reduce the number of European and US aircraft manufacturers drastically, from 1983, no fewer than seven airframers conducted the first flights of ten different propeller-powered products over the next decade. The crowded house would become lost in the shuffle, as manufacturers struggled to secure hard-fought orders and regional jets began to reign supreme as the millennium edged closer.
